Help with a Fortune 50 project
I'm currently a rising senior in an honors business program at a Non-Target. Long story short, I am completing a thesis project, but instead of an academic thesis, I am doing a professional consulting project. I was able to network my way into a solo consulting engagement with top management (EVP's and C-level) at a Fortune 50 healthcare company, who is also a McK client. The project is oriented around developing recommendations for increasing corporate innovation, and determining the best approach (M&A, Corporate VC, internal startups, etc.). I'm looking for advice on how I can get the most out of this experience, and how to position it in the best way possible from a recruiting standpoint for MBB. Any advice is appreciated!
Also, I'm thinking about framing it (somewhat jokingly) that I'm stealing business from McK as an undergrad- would it be worth bringing this up in an interview?
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Sounds like you'll produce two kinds of documents at the end of the summer: a powerpoint or brief summary of your findings for the management, and a longer thesis describing your approach for your business program. A thesis is a published academic document, so unless your client already arranged terms for an embargo, your client has no reasonable expectation that you will keep the information therein private. You could provide the thesis as a sample of your work when you apply to firms (e.g. include the document URL in your resume): I absolutely think you should do this, since otherwise you leave it open to their imagination whether you're doing quality work or merely hanging around unsupervised for the summer. While firms might also like to see the powerpoint/summary, I'm guessing these could be considered confidential since they are not published academic materials, so you should get the firm's approval before sharing them with anyone.
You could arrange a thirty-minute meeting with a professional consultant to hear what additional analyses they would recommend based on a draft of your thesis. Many consultants are happy to meet for "informational interviews" of the same length, so I'm guessing they'd be amenable to helping you out. Doing this shows that you acknowledge you have something to learn from the pros and care about delivering the best possible analysis. By contrast, stating in your cover letter that you're "stealing their business" suggests that you consider yourself their equal already...and if your interviewer thinks otherwise, they might stick it to you.
Great points, thank you for the insight! We're still working through some of the logistics of the embargo. I have been talking to some consultants in order to get their advice (in an appropriate confidential way, of course), which also is helping to get them "invested" in a way. Any other advice on ways to establish this as a legitimate project?
You better figure out a way to quantify the effect that your proposal had. "Developing recommendations to increase corporate innovations" screams bullshit to me. If you can figure out what effect your project actually had, then yes it would definitely be a good talking point for "why you'd like consulting".
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